Out of the mountainous region of Cuzco, Peru, a 4-year-old boy named Roal Gonzales Quispe and his mother, Cristina Quispe Barrios, came to Lubbock for surgery to correct the child's cleft palate.
Dozens of people, primarily volunteers from the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock but including U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm and U.S. Rep. Larry Combest, extended extraordinary efforts to bring the mother and child to Texas.
Roal had surgery Friday at Covenant Medical Center and, despite two previous unsuccessful operations, Dr. David Haymes Jr., a plastic surgeon, said the boy's chances are good.
''This was the hardest (cleft palate) I've ever done ... out of between 50 and 100,'' Haymes said Sunday.
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(aj-photo/ Chase Perry) Roal Gonzales Quispe
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Because of the scarring left behind by the previous operations, Haymes was not sure he could help
Roal.
Children who suffer from cleft palates are usually born with the condition. The palate fails to grow together, leaving a hole in the roof of the mouth.
Haymes, Dr. Philip Scolaro and dentist Barry Currey volunteered their services for free.
Scolaro, an ear, nose and throat specialist, drained fluid from the boy's middle ear, which is a common problem for cleft palate patients. Currey pulled five teeth and crowned eight others. He also formed a special retainer to partially cover the hole in Roal's palate and control food and liquid reflux into the nasal cavity.
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Roal Gonzales Quispe clowns around with his mother Cristina Quispe Barrios, left, and Dr. David Haymes Jr. in his hospital room.
A-J Photo/Chase Perry
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All three procedures were performed consecutively on Friday, and all three were successful.
But the cleft palate was the most worrisome condition for Roal's mother. She wondered if her son would be able to attend school because of his nearly unrecognizable, nasal speech, and she worried that other children might ridicule him.
She was so ecstatic Friday after Haymes told her everything went well, she cried tears of joy and gave him a strong hug.
''I will never forget what you've done for me and my son,'' she told Haymes Sunday.
''And I will never forget the hug you gave me when I came out of surgery,'' Haymes replied.
Roal's story began in November when a medical mission by Broadway Church of Christ, composed of about 30 volunteers, spent a week ministering to the ailments of approximately 2,000 people, said Lana Powell, a nurse at University Medical Center and member of the Church of Christ.
''The trip was a life-changing experience for me,'' Powell said. ''After I came back I watched the Rose Parade on TV and they were talking about how much each float had cost to build. And all I was thinking was how far that money could go to address the poverty and suffering of the people in Peru.''
Barrios grows and harvests coffee beans for an annual income of about $500.
During the missionary visit Dr. Noel Ellis, a retired Lubbock pediatrician, examined Roal and said the boy's cleft palate was the worst he'd ever seen. But the group returned to Lubbock and forgot about Roal, said Karen Randolph, Lubbock Christian University professor.
Randolph, a member of the Broadway Church of Christ mission committee, has been taking missionary trips to Peru to visit the Quechua people, Roal and Cristina's people, since 1985.
''Dr. Ellis said that he had never seen a cleft palate so severe, and if it wasn't repaired, the child would probably never be able to speak,'' Randolph said. ''All of us thought that we would arrange everything for them (Roal and Cristina) when we came back to the states. However, we were all so busy we just forgot about them.''
Call it luck. Call it serendipity. Call it divine intervention.
Terry Dennis, a nurse specialist with Covenant Health System, was talking with Haymes about his desire to perform cleft palate surgery in Costa Rica, where the need is great.
Later Dennis, a member of the Church of Christ, asked the missions committee to send a doctor to Costa Rica to perform cleft palate surgeries, and something clicked.
Dennis ''comes and asks the missions committee to go to Costa Rica, but our mission committee didn't hear Costa Rica, they heard cleft palate repair,'' Randolph said. ''They smiled and said, 'Do we have a case for you.'
''So if it wasn't for the Lord putting the passion in Dr. Haymes' heart, we would have never have come together. This is Dr. Haymes' mission, this cleft palate.''
But bringing mother and son from their tiny village in Peru was not easy.
The Peruvian government required permission from the boy's father, who was unavailable, and the American Embassy wanted medical records and other documents that the mother could not produce.
Eventually the Peruvian courts granted Barrios and Roal passports, but the American Embassy denied the visa request, Randolph said.
So she reached out for help, eventually getting Gramm to write a letter encouraging the American Embassy to issue visas to the mother and son.
A staff member in Combest's office helped collect the medical and financial documents required for visa approval.
After convincing the Embassy that the boy did have the financial support of Broadway Church of Christ and Covenant, which donated the operating room, nursing services, medicines and post-operative care, the Embassy agreed to reconsider the case once all the commitments were sent in writing.
''Broadway Church of Christ gathered the information for the family and faxed it to the chief consular officer at the U.S. Embassy in Peru, who immediately reviewed the case and granted the visas the following week,'' Combest said. ''Due to each party working together on behalf of the child, we were able to provide a link which enabled this boy to have the operations that were necessary for him to live a normal life.''
Randolph also contacted Immeasurably More, a nonprofit organization that conducts medical missions to Third World countries. That organization contacted Continental Airlines which, in turn, facilitated transportation for mother and son, said Malena Rampy, trip coordinator for Immeasurably More.
The end result Ð the nearly 1-inch hole in Roal's palate is repaired, and the boy should lead a normal life.
''He'll be able to eat normally, and hopefully his speech will develop more normally,'' Haymes said, ''although he's clearly going to require some degree of work at developing normal speech in the next few years.''
Asked why he volunteered to take on the challenging procedure, Haymes said, ''It's an opportunity to affect a kid's life.''
Perhaps Charley Trimble, CEO of Covenant Health System, sums up best what happened in this story of a single mother and her son, living thousands of miles away in a primitive jungle village, and in need of medical care.
Trimble, who unilaterally decided to offer the services of Covenant Medical Center to the family for free, said, ''This was not about money. It was about kindness.''
Michael Gaffney can be contacted at 766-8796 or gaffney@lubbockonline.com
